Last Breakfast in Paradise

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Last Breakfast in Paradise
Directed byMeg Stewart
Written byMeg Stewart
Produced byRichard Brennan
Starring Penne Hackforth-Jones
John Hargreaves
CinematographyDavid Sanderson
Edited byHenry Dangar
Music bySharon Calcraft
Release date
  • 1982 (1982)
Running time
45 minutes
CountryAustralia
LanguageEnglish
Budget$52,000 [1]

Last Breakfast in Paradise is a 1982 Australian short film created by Meg Stewart. It tell the story of the last period of a love affair. [2] It was the first fiction film by Stewart who shot the film over two weeks. [1] It won the Fiction award Greater Union Awards in 1982. [3]

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Anna-Maria Dell'oso, writing for the Sydney Morning Herald, called it "Short, sweet and scathing". She writes "Swift, witty and poignant, Last Breakfast In Paradise emerges as an intimate chamber piece against the big loud symphonies of the two-hour-plus feature films." [4]

In 1985 it was showcased on The Cutting Room where the Age's Judith Fox called it "a densely-written, theatrically-structured film about the end of a relationship in which language is used to maintain emotional distance." [5] Barbara Hooks of the Age writes "Meg Stewarts script is at once studied and throwaway, penetrating and obscure, wryly amusing and sad. Language is the couple's chosen weaponry. This is dialogue at 10 paces. An interesting, if rather theatrical, observation of a romance in ruins." [6] Richard Coleman in the Sydney Morning Herald said it "was a boy-leaves-girl story enshrouded in a lot of bad dialogue" and that the best parts of the film was the performance of the lead actors. [7]

Cast

References

  1. 1 2 Murdoch, Anna (15 September 1983), "Writer, film director lives life of recluse", The Age
  2. Parr, Adrienne. "Last Breakfast in Paradise (1982)". Australian Screen. National Film and Sound Archive of Australia. Retrieved 22 July 2025.
  3. "First responses to the festivals", Filmnews, 1 July 1982
  4. Dell'oso, Anna-Maria (1 October 1983), "Sliding glances at love", The Sydney Morning Herald
  5. Fox, Judith (16 December 1985), "The Cutting Room", The Age
  6. Hooks, Barbara (18 December 1985), "A relationship ends as a series begins", The Age
  7. Coleman, Richard (21 December 1985), "A feast of bad dialogue, each new line built on the ruins of the old", The Sydney Morning Herald